U.s.: Supplies In Bomb Plot Purchased At Beauty Stores

September 25, 2009|By Josh Meyer and Tina Susman Tribune Newspapers

WASHINGTON — - Airport shuttle driver Najibullah Zazi was indicted on terrorism charges Thursday, as federal authorities alleged that at least three other Denver-area men bought suspicious chemicals as part of an active bombing conspiracy with plotters still at large.

Authorities confirmed that they were searching urgently for the other conspirators for questioning.

And the Justice Department disclosed in court documents that "others" accompanied Zazi on his circuitous trip from a New York-area airport to a militant stronghold in Pakistan last year, suggesting that they, too, might have clandestinely received al-Qaida weapons and explosives training.

"Zazi remained committed to detonating an explosive device up until the date of his arrest" Saturday, nine days after arriving in New York City, allegedly to meet with other members of the plot, according to a Justice Department detention motion filed in support of its effort to keep Zazi detained without bail. A federal judge in Colorado agreed Thursday, setting the stage for Zazi's transfer to New York to face charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property in the United States.

While Zazi was ordered held, his father, Mohammed Zazi, and a New York imam were ordered released on bail. They had been arrested along with Zazi on charges of lying to authorities in the sprawling and intensive terrorism investigation.

The detention motion alleges that Zazi plotted for more than a year to launch the bomb plot, that he had recently bought some chemicals that can be used for bombmaking from beauty supply stores and that he was looking for "urgent" help in the last two weeks to make homemade bombs.

On Sept. 6 and 7, before he set off in a rental car for New York, Zazi tried multiple times to communicate with another individual "seeking to correct mixtures of ingredients to make explosives."

Authorities also said Zazi bought on multiple occasions unusually large amounts of readily available components necessary to produce triacetone triperoxide before arriving in New York City on Sept. 10, "in furtherance of the criminal plan."

Triacetone triperoxide is the explosive used in the deadly 2005 London train and bus bombings that killed 52 people.

The government also alleged that at least three other unnamed men purchased suspicious quantities of hydrogen peroxide or acetone from beauty supply stores in the Denver area - an indication that they were also conspiring to mix the chemicals into homemade bombs, authorities said.